Despite losing in their first two challenges, Cuba advanced this Sunday to the second round of the V World Baseball Classic (WBC)and he did it as the leader of the tight group A of the tournament.
Thanks to his triumph this morning 7-1 over the hosts Chinese Taipei and the subsequent victory of Italy over the Netherlands with the same score, the island’s team qualified among the eight best teams in the Classic and agreed to the so-called sudden death, in which they will face the second place of key B.
The results of this Sunday at the Taichung Intercontinental Stadium, in taiwancaused an unprecedented event in the history of these tournaments, since all the casts of group A closed their performances with a balance of two wins and the same number of losses.
The situation forced the use of one of the variants established by the organizers to break the equality between several teams, based on the division of the runs allowed between the outs made in all duels.
Thus, the best coefficient (0.139) corresponded to the Cuban team, which in the four games played allowed 15 touchdowns and got a total of 102 putouts.
Behind were, in the following order, Italy with 0.157 (17 runs allowed and 108 defensive outs), the Netherlands with 0.186 (19 runs allowed and 102 outs), Panama with 0.200 (21 runs allowed and 105 outs) and the local cast with 0.295 (31 runs allowed and 105 outs).
The location allows Cuba to avoid crossing in the next phase with the powerful Japanese team, which should not face major setbacks to dominate segment B of the tournament and have Italy as a rival in that instance.
Cuba has participated in all the editions of the World Classic held so far and has never been eliminated in the first phase. Their best result is still the subtitle they got in the initial version, when they lost to Japan in the final.
